


Tether: Realignment

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 12:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4138341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: "She doesn't think about that. How differently he renders his name when it means something. She doesn't think about Naked Heat at all. She just hates it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: this will be a three-or four-shot depending of whether I do lit the longish middle chapter or not. It's set during "A Deadly Affair" (3x01) and "He's Dead, She's a Dead" (3x02). See end notes for more information.

 

* * *

 

She hates _Naked Heat._

She decides that the minute she plunks her money down. Before that, even. Because she has to plunk her money down. Because it's out. Not really. Not _officially_ , but it's always this way in New York. And it's not like it's the launch of a new character, cloaked in secrecy. So here it is. Still two weeks from the official release, and already there are pyramids in bookstore windows and ads splashed across bus shelters. Flashing down on her from electronic billboards and popping up in the sidebar of her browser. That damned cover. That _stupid_ photo of him from the back of the jacket.

It's out, and he didn't even have the courtesy to send her a copy.

So she plunks down her money, too furious even to wait for her change. Too close to putting a few rounds between the eyes of that stupid, smirking cardboard version of him not to tuck it under her arm and hit the street at speed, leaving a gaping clerk and a stream of murmuring, pointing patrons in her wake.

_It's her. I'm telling you. The real Nikki Heat_.

* * *

 

She walks back to her place. Strides. She eats up the stupid distance between the bookstore and safe harbor, and it's miles. Miles between home and the place where she faltered. Caved. Gave in. It's miles and far less time than it ought to have taken to travel them before she's double-locked in with the security chain thrown.

She cracks the cover, and the fury sweeps out of her, all in a rush. She's hollowed out. There's nothing to replace it. Nothing she's interested in putting a name to, anyway.

It's signed.

She hadn't looked. She hadn't been paying attention, because she absolutely wasn't going to buy it. Hell, she wasn't going to talk about it or think about it or acknowledge its existence in any way. He's out of her life, and good riddance. There's no earthly reason she should be interested in this or any of his other juvenile fantasies.

But here she is, and it's signed, and the pain is as sharp as it was months ago. Too-big, sloppy letters on an angle, like he was tired of the exercise long before he got to this one. The loose loop of the final e actually crosses the dedication, two lines too blurred right now for her to make out.

She slams it closed. Fury sweeps back in again. A brief, dramatic wave, and her foot is on the pedal of the trash can. She dangles the heavy thing from two fingers. She lets it hover, but doesn't let go.

She paid good money for it and there's a gap on the shelf. There's a gap there after _Storm Fall_ and _Heat Wave,_ and she doesn't even remember when she made space for it. She doesn't remember any hopeful season when she might have looked forward to this, but there it is. Negative space.

The metal lid of the trashcan clangs shut. She shoves the book somewhere out of sight without another look. Not into the waiting gap, but back behind things. She doesn't think about it anymore.

She doesn't think about its generic strokes of the pen or everything that stupid signature isn't. She doesn't think about the contrast with the other two. The other three. Because even in the few lines he scrawled before he handed the book off, smiling, to a heartsick kid, his writing is different. Painstaking, even though he was staring down a line that still wound around and around that book store. But she doesn't think about that. How differently he renders his name when it means something.

She doesn't think about _Naked Heat_ at all.

She just hates it.

* * *

 

She doesn't know why she doesn't cut him loose the minute it's even a possibility. She doesn't know why he wants to hang around for this. For _anything_. Days of back-and-forth nonsense, and she can't reconcile any one thing about him with anything else.

_You look good._

_You know with whom._

The heat in his eyes and the retreat to impeccable grammar like he's offended that she'd ask.

_Demming_.

The way he had to push the name through his teeth and then . . . hunger.

_You broke up?_

Dark, then light. Hope that's sweet enough to leave her heartsore for an instant before everything flashes black for her again. He's in a relationship, so what the hell business is it of his anyway?

She can't make any sense of it at all. Why he cares or why he'd even pretend to, if that's what this is. Why he's acting like this is about Maya one minute and spouting off about the universe—acting like it's about _them_ —the next.

And then he's there at dawn with her coffee like usual, and she wants to lay her head on the desk and just sob, because she was over this. She was over him and all the stupid nonsense Esposito had filled her head with. Because she's not built for this kind of thing, whatever it is.

But he saves her life, and she saves his, and everything between interrogation and that insane hall of mirrors is like . . . it's like no time at all has passed. Like there's no summer or crossed signals or ex-wife between them.

_This past year, working with you, I've had a really good time._

Everything is like the second after that, only he doesn't go. He doesn't leave with his arm around someone else.

Everything is like _this_ is the relationship he's in.

* * *

 

She lies. She plays along for a good long while before it even comes that, and she doesn't know why. She doesn't know if he knows. If that's why he offered to leave her in peace. Whether or not he would have made good.

_So uh, I guess you won the bet._

_Yeah. But look, if you don't want —_

She doesn't know anything, except he'll be back tomorrow, and that's her doing.

She drags herself home and thinks about going to bed in her clothes. She's exhausted with everything she can't make sense of, but she forces herself through her rituals as she has every night for months. Every night before he up-ended her life a year ago. Dinner. Exercise. Tugging cards down from the inside of the shutters and pinning them back up, absolutely nothing added or taken away. Absolutely nothing more than a whispered apology to her mother as she swings them closed again.

She kills time until it's a reasonable hour for a well-adjusted adult woman to sleep. That's what she is. A grown woman with her life together, not some groupie or teenager clinging to a fantasy she'd let get the better of her. She drifts from lamp to lamp, and there's satisfaction in the snap of each as the room grows darker. Solace in predictable things.

She winds up by the bookcase, though. The farthest point possible from the bedroom. She winds up with Naked Heat in her hands. The spine creaks and the pages fan open to the scene of two crimes.

The dedication. Cold. Impersonal. Self-fucking-congratulatory, really.

_To the real Nikki Heat, with gratitude_

And worse, the acknowledgments.

_. . . especially Gina Cowell for staying on top of me . . ._

She doesn't know why she took him back or what they're doing. She doesn't know anything, but she hates that damned book.

 

 

 


	2. Realignment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She's furious. Really furious at him. She was, at least, and he gets a more than occasional still is vibe from her, and he doesn't exactly get it. She was eager enough to be rid of him back in May. Eager enough to lie so things wouldn't be "awkward" because of Demming."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I made Castle shut up a little, so this is a three-shot. It's set during "A Deadly Affair" (3x01) and "He's Dead, She's a Dead" (3x02).

 

 

It's good like this. Better than . . . whatever he'd been thinking back in May. Whatever he _thought_ he'd been thinking had been a really bad idea. He's sure of that. He's sure that whatever he'd been thinking would have ruined what _is._ He'd have lost her _—_ lost _this—_ entirely. Because she's not the kind of woman who harbors warm fuzzy feelings for her exes just because that's how the stories go. And the two of them would surely have ended with a short, sharp shock.

_If they'd ended._

Thoughts like that creep in, and they're . . . unsettling. In their persistence. In how plausible they sound.

_If they'd ended._

But it's just . . . it's the books, right? The push and pull of Nikki and Rook and their ultra-modern, undefined-but-intense-and-most-definitely-physical relationship. Tension. Conflict. Resolution. Of course he has against-all-odds thoughts about the two of _them_ —him and Beckett. He has to keep their alter egos and their relationship plausible for another three books, after all.

_Two books._

Just two left now, and he keeps forgetting. He forgets about _Naked Heat._ It's strange, because it's consumed him for months. The whole summer spent chipping away more methodically than he ever has, and he likes it. The case is better, for sure. They dynamic between Nikki and Rook, too. All-too-realistic strain and undeniable attraction, perfectly counterposed. He thinks he's done a better job of it this time around.

And it's kind of eerie the way things have just gone in the real world. Life imitating art. A dramatic, unexpected, and frankly kind of terrifying reunion over a body, exactly like in the book. It's kind of _cool._ Another sign from the universe, though he doesn't dare bring it up.

She's furious. Really _furious_ at him. She was, at least, and he gets a more than occasional _still is_ vibe from her, and he doesn't exactly get it. She was eager enough to be rid of him back in May. Eager enough to _lie_ so things wouldn't be "awkward" because of Demming.

_Demming._

It's another thought that creeps in, and it shouldn't. He's sorry it didn't pan out between them. He's sorry that it stings for her when the subject comes up, but that should be the end of it. He shouldn't wonder when it unraveled or why. He shouldn't wonder what might have happened if he'd stayed the summer, because he didn't. Because Demming isn't the point at all.

The point is, they're better off like this.

* * *

 

The "reception" for _Naked Heat_ is good. According to Gina, anyway. For him, it's appearances here and numbers there. Talking heads spouting figures at him that he knows sound important, but don't particularly mean anything.

But Gina says it's good, and there's a certain amount of patting him on the head that comes with it. A certain breath he didn't even know he was holding that he's able to let go, because a good reception means she won't drum up any crazy ideas to help them hit targets, and he won't dig in his heels and refuse. A good reception means no bumps in the road, and they go on working like they do.

He tries to keep it separate. Book life and precinct life. Things are a little brittle, and he's trying to take care, even though he wants to know what she thinks. Beckett. He can't exactly forget about the book now, and he wants to know if she likes it. If the reunion rings true, and if there might be one twist too many in the plot.

He wants to see the way she'll frown about the college boyfriend. He pictures it. The way he'll plant an elbow on her desk and a fist over his mouth just to keep himself quiet while she lets things slip about the way it really was for her. All the hearts she's broken over the years and how she came by her scars.

He cares what she thinks. Of course he does. Nikki is both of them, after all, and wrangling over what is and isn't true about her is work. Her hand's in this creation, too.

But it's more than that. More than just vanity mixed with the weight he gives her point of view. More than just the game of hide and seek the books are with them. He wants her to read it, because he has some stupid idea that it might help. And they kind of need help.

She's taken him back, but she hasn't. She's strange and stand-offish by default now, and whenever they fall back in sync with each other, fizzing and alight, she stops dead. She shakes herself and takes a huge step back, and he's getting really tired of it. This fury he doesn't understand, because she _wanted_ him to go. Because he _offered_ to go, after he'd come back, and he's pretty sure she threw the bet anyway, so some part of her must want him here.

_Some part of her._

He doesn't know what that means, and he just wishes she'd read the damned book.

He doesn't even know if she means to. She _never_ brings it up. She never asks where he's been or why he has to cut out of the precinct so often. She never pays the slightest bit of attention when anyone else ribs him about whatever morning show or website they saw him on.

She never says a thing, so he can't just bring it up. He can't just casually ask or tell her that this one isn't what she thinks. What she probably thinks, though he wouldn't really know. He can't just blurt out that it's not like the last one.

But it's not.

_Heat Wave_ was a love letter. Paula'd been far from the only one to call it that, though, to his mind, it's not quite right. Not a love letter, a mash note, he thinks. Or some other term that doesn't make him sound a million years old. Something lined and torn from a notebook. Folded tight in some arcane process. Check boxes inside: _Do you LIKE like me? [Y] [N]_

That was _Heat Wave._ Written to the half-imaginary woman he was crazy about from the minute he laid eyes on her.

But _Naked Heat_ is better. It's an apology. A thank you to her for forgiveness. For taking him back last year and letting things grow between them. Wholeheartedly, then. It's a thank you for her trust and . . . friendship.

It's an odd label for them, and it's not. She's not an open person. Not at all, and he thinks the foundation for that was laid long before her mother. She retrofits her current self into her own past the same way anyone does, but he doesn't think she's ever been one to share by reflex.

She shares with him, though. Not by reflex, of course. She shares when he hounds and begs and pleads. When he tricks her into it by writing best-selling novels that get every possible detail wrong, and she just _has_ to let him know how it really was.

But the truth of it is she _does_ let him know, a lot of the time anyway, and she doesn't seem to do that with anyone else. She's close in a life-and-death way with Ryan and Esposito, and they all squabble like the dysfunctional work family they are. And she and Lanie have a spin on the BFF thing that works for them, but she doesn't seem to _share_ with anyone but him. And what does that make them, if not friends?

He values that, because it's not one-way. _He_ shares, too. Not just in his typical, mouth-running, brain-dump way. He opens up in a way that's never been easy for him. Never safe or profitable in the constantly shifting world he's always lived in. But it's easy with her. Easier, anyway, to give voice to worries about his kid and his mother and life and work and all the things that keep him awake at night.

Even now, he's not exactly knee-deep in people he's open with, either. He has pals and contacts and guys he knows. He has Gina, and they _work_. Another thing he'd gotten wrong, then right. He has Gina, but she's practical. Not a middle-of-the-night, existential fretting kind of person, and Beckett is. With him, at least.

It's another strange check he puts in the "better like this" column, because it's not just the books. It's not just that two years from now he'll have to wrap Nikki and Rook and their forever up in a bow. It's that he values what they have—the real "them"—and he can't imagine going without it. He can't think now how he even got through the summer, and he wants her to take him back wholeheartedly.

He wants her to read the damned book _._

* * *

 

She doesn't have it. The realization wakes him from sound sleep to the sealed-up pitch black of his bedroom.

She doesn't have a copy. She wasn't on the master list for Black Pawn, because . . .

Because he'd meant to be the one to give it to her. Weeks before, just like last time.

Because the generic notes he uses in rotation for the hundreds of "personalizations" on the master list are awful.

Because the dedication was hard enough, and he'd tried all summer not to think about her.

And now the damned thing is _out_ , and she doesn't even have a copy. He's furious with himself. Furious at how thoughtless he's been. He slips from bed, furtive without cause. Gina hadn't stayed the night, but he's ashamed. It feels right to hide.

He hauls out an oversized set of bound proofs first. He grins miserably at the memory of her with her feet drawn up and the stall door locked. Sneaking off to find the naughty parts.

She should have had them weeks ago, and he feels a pang. A queasy ripple of too-late regret. The ragged way she tried to get rid of him makes sense all of a sudden. Some kind of sense, anyway. A sliver of her fury and all the ways things aren't quite right between them.

_Go home. Go back to your Hamptons, your ex-wife, your book parties._

It's not the book. It's what the book means. To them. For them. About them.

He sets the proofs aside. It's a too-late gesture she won't like, and undeserved salve for his conscience. He pulls a regular copy from the pile already shoved in the corner behind his desk. He opens to the dedication.

His pen hovers, and he's stuck. Absolutely stuck. Nothing to say. Everything to say, as if it's more than just the cover he's cracked open.

_To the real Nikki Heat_

He hates that, all of a sudden. Hates it, though it felt exactly right weeks ago. Far from her, it felt exactly right.

He starts with a caret, right there at the line break, then stalls again. There's not enough ink or white space for all the things he needs to add. Here or in the five-hundred pages he has left. It has him queasy again. That hard limit terrifies him. It jerks his hand across the page. Ten words that aren't enough. His name, and that looks wrong, too. Another caret. A remedy for the fact that he's _not_ Richard Castle. To her—with her—he's not.

He slaps the cover closed before he can overthink it any more than he already has. He looks up, surprised to see a hint of light the sky through the glass wall of the office. He steals a glance at the desktop clock, already in motion.

He has time. He'll make time.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks for reading. Final chapter up Wednesday or Thursday.


	3. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: "He's startled. Flustered, and there's that flash again. Misery for sure, and she's sorry to have caused it. She doesn't understand what he has to be miserable about, but she's sorry. She almost says it, but for what? She's sorry for what? "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And, final chapter. This is set during "A Deadly Affair" (3x01) and "He's Dead, She's a Dead" (3x02).

 

She wasn't expecting him. It's dawn again when the elevator doors open, but she wasn't even expecting him at a more civilized hour. She glances from the murder board, wiped clean for now, to his progress toward her, silent as he approaches. Her heart racing like it shouldn't. She wasn't expecting him.

"Beckett. Hi. Here."

He thrusts the cardboard tray toward her. An awkward move with something still under his elbow. She's not expecting that, either, and the whole thing almost tips back on him.

"Castle!" She rights it at the last second, snapped into motion and out of silence by the precarious tilt. "Coffee?"

"Coffee," he says, and she can't get a read on him. She can't imagine what he's doing here. She can't imagine why it doesn't annoy her more that he is. She takes in his shirt and jacket, subdued black and a sober charcoal pinstripe. She chalks it up to that. She tells herself it's the sorrow of the day, secondhand or not, that has her cutting him a break.

"There's no body." Her eyes flick to Ryan's desk. Esposito's, like the two of them might have suddenly materialized. Like she might be wrong about that.

"No." He's apologetic, rather than annoyed or ready with something to breeze by the implication he shouldn't be there. He fidgets with his cuffs. With whatever's pinned to his side. "I mean . . . no one called me."

_I would have_.

She manages to bite that back. The eager reassurance she doesn't owe him. She _doesn't._ She brushes aside the pang of something that grabs her ribs at the thought.

"You didn't come just to bring me coffee." There's an edge to it that makes him look up sharply. Another pang, but she hides behind busywork, pulling the cups free and setting them on the desk.

"Not . . . not _just_ to."

She doesn't like that. Where the emphasis falls. He doesn't seem to like it either. He shifts on his feet, gearing up to something.

"How's Martha holding up?" She lobs it out there quickly, suddenly nervous.

It throws him at first. The words. Her whole demeanor and she . . . doesn't like that. She doesn't like the trouble he's having reading her any more than she likes putting two and two together and getting nonsense when it comes to him.

His head actually snaps left, then right, then back at the change of subject before he puts it together. He looks down at himself. Exactly the same move she's seen seen on a thousand suspects. Wondering what gave him away. She feels mean. It's a game she didn't mean to play, so she shows her hand. She gestures to the flash of cufflinks at his wrists.

"Chet's funeral's today, isn't it?"

"Later this morning," he says absently. He's focused on something else. On her. He looks her up and down. He takes a turn of his own as he regards her dark, tailored slacks and the black sweater that's a little too warm for the weather. "Were you planning . . .?"

His gaze turns aside a second like he's checking himself. He looks back to her, something complicated passing over his face. A shadow, but not quite. Lighter than that.

"I was going to." She rushes in, uneasy again, though she's not quite up to speed with why. "I came in early so I can stretch lunch a little. I'd like to . . . For Martha. Just the service before hand."

Something catches her hard, then. A sudden image. Martha leaning on his arm. Alexis on the other side, bearing up her grandmother. And Gina. Somewhere, surely, even though she and Martha aren't the best of friends. Surely Gina fits in somewhere.

"If you think it's ok," she finishes, proud that it sounds something like normal, even though she's choking on the words.

"Ok?" His brows draw together for just a second. Confusion followed by something else. Complicated again. A little miserable, she thinks, though it's gone before she can tug on that particular thread. "I think it's a really . . ." His voice fails him. Just a second, again, and it's gone. "It would mean a lot to Mother." He shores himself up and goes on as if he's not sure he should. "A lot to me."

"Ok." Relief takes her. A smile more unguarded than she'd like, and he smiles back. It's comfortable, just like that. All the awkward hesitation dissipates, just like that, and she finds herself pointing. Leaning to peer at whatever it is he's not quite keeping out of sight. "So what is it?"

He's startled. Flustered, and there's that flash again. Misery for sure, and she's sorry to have caused it. She doesn't understand what _he_ has to be miserable about, but she's sorry. She almost says it, but for what? She's sorry for _what?_

"Not just to bring you coffee." It's more to himself than to her, but it squares his shoulders. It drags his eyes up to hers. Misery again, and she's sorry whether she should be or not. "I brought you this."

There's nothing at first. No offering or gesture, just his elbow tucked against his side, and then he's in sudden motion. Another awkward thrust in her direction, though this won't spill at least

_The book._

It's that damned book. Her fingers curl around it and she feels it all over again. That white hot sheet of fury.

"I'm sorry." It spills out of him quickly. She looks up. Blinks and wonders if he knows. If it burns him too, and he knows she was just half a second from shoving it back at him. "I'm _sorry,_ Beckett."

He says it again, and there's power in it. Not just his sincerity, but this tug between them. This stupidly, damnably resilient connection. There's power, and in the moment, his misery, her anger and all the things gone wrong between them can't stand up to it.

"There's no excuse. Me being away. However we left things before summer."

He shakes his head, sorrowful and resigned where she's panicked. Sweat trickling down her spine in the too-warm sweater because it's closer by leaps and bounds to anything they've ever said about May.

She's _panicked._ For two infinitely painful seconds she tries to open her mouth. She tries to tell him the whole stupid story. She tries to tell him that she was scared and stupid and none of this is _like_ her.

But her mouth is closed and the moment is gone. They ebb back into caution. Subtext.

"It should have . . . occurred to me."

He's not quite brave enough to smile at it. The nod to a year ago, but she feels it between her ribs. Sharp pain in a place that's still sore.

"Signed?" It's a joke. She can hardly believe it, unhappy as she is, but it's definitely—kind of—a joke.

"Of course. Personalized." He lifts his eyebrows, joking back. Trying to, anyway.

He nods to it. Gestures to the book, and her fingers follow the order. They curl under the cover and her palm smooths the other front matter away. She stares down at the dedication—the _amended_ dedication _—_ unseeing at first.

"You'll tell me . . ." He stops himself. An urgent, careful correction. "When you get a chance to read it . . . I hope you'll tell me what you think?"

She snaps the cover closed. A sharp report that startles her as much as him. She pulls it into her body, her hands tight around it. She looks up at him, a smile burning through the mock-serious face she's trying to hold.

"I can tell you right now." She taps the naked silhouette on the cover. The strategically held gun. "I hate the damned thing."

"Figured," he says, rolling his eyes. Smiling, too, misery abated if not altogether gone. "I'll see you later." She sees him trying not to make it a question. About to move, but hesitating. "Thank you, Beckett. Really."

"Thank _you_ ," she echoes, holding the book against her now. Nodding to it.

She waits till he goes. Till the elevator closes on him letting out a breath. Closing his eyes in something like silent thanks. She waits till then and opens the cover a quarter inch. A half. Just enough before she presses it closed again. Too much. Too much for such a public place but she knows it by heart already.

_To the real Nikki Heat, ^ more in every way than her counterpart in these pages,_

_With gratitude_

_Richard ^ Alexander Castle_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: That's it for this one. Thanks for reading. If subsequent stories come together, they'll have "Tether" as the main title and I'll post them on their own.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I'm publishing this as a multi-chapter story, though my intention is to do a series of linked stories set in season 3, culminating in a particular end point. I don't know how well that will actually work out, but this story, I promise, is written an has a kind of closure on its own. My brain is in a kill-it-with-fire place that I'm trying to salvage some writing from, hence my listing if this, rather than waiting until the larger piece has more shape and solidity.


End file.
